Plastic article or earthenware shaping or treating: apparatus – Reshaping – resizing or vulcanizing means for tire – tire... – Toroidal or annular female shaping means and coacting means...
Reexamination Certificate
1999-03-19
2001-06-05
Mackey, James P. (Department: 1722)
Plastic article or earthenware shaping or treating: apparatus
Reshaping, resizing or vulcanizing means for tire, tire...
Toroidal or annular female shaping means and coacting means...
C425S058100
Reexamination Certificate
active
06241501
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a tire vulcanizer for manufacturing a tire by vulcanization molding a green tire followed by expansion cooling.
2. Description of the Related Art
One of conventional tire vulcanizers is disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open No. 60-12421 which is hereby fully incorporated by reference. This tire vulcanizer comprises a tire vulcanizing press for vulcanization molding a green tire, two swing loaders for carrying a vulcanization molded tire from the tire vulaning press, a post-cure inflator for expansion cooling the vulcanized tire carried by each swing loader, and a roller conveyor for carrying the tire cooled by the post-cure inflator. The roller conveyor is attached to the post-cure inflator without obstructing the rise and fall of a lower bead part holding rim plate, and laid into horizontal and inclined states by an air cylinder connected thereto through a shaft.
In this tire vulcanizer, a vulcanized tire is carried out from the tire vulcanizing press by each swing loader and carried into the post-cure inflator by swing motion to shift it to expansion cooling process. The tire cooled by the post-cure inflator is carried out of the post-cure inflator by inclining the roller conveyer by the air cylinder, discharged to a carrying-out conveyor by a discharge conveyor inclined continuously to the roller conveyor, and carried to a tire inspecting machine or shipping place.
In the conventional tire vulcanizer, however, a large longitudinal space extending from the tire vulcanizing press to the carrying-out conveyor was required because of the serial arrangement of the tire vulcanizing press, the post-cure inflator, the discharge conveyor and the like over the longitudinal direction. Accordingly, the forward space of the tire vulcanizing press could not be sufficiently ensured when the tire vulcanizer was set in a facility such as factory, so that the work for replacing the mold of the tire vulcanizing press by a forklift or the like was difficult. Further, the setting space for a green tire placing base and a green tire truck to be arranged in the front of the tire vulcanizing press was reduced, which often caused their overflowing into a passage.
Further, the carrying-out loader of a conventional tire vulcanizer disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 1-113212 which is hereby fully incorporated by reference, for example, comprises a tire chuck
102
for holding a tire and a rotating arm
103
for the tire chuck
102
which are situated on the post-cure inflator side
101
of a tire vulcanizing press
100
as shown in
FIG. 16
, and it delivers the vulcanized tire from the tire vulcanizing press
100
to the post-cure inflator
101
. Such a carrying-out loader is provided with two hydraulic cylinders
104
,
105
for swing motion so that it can be stopped in three positions of a tire vulcanizing press internal prescribed position P
0
, a post-cure inflator internal prescribed position P
2
, and a waiting position P
3
.
However, since the two hydraulic cylinders
104
,
105
had cylinder parts largely protruded toward the post-cure inflator
101
side in which the top ends of their rods were mutually joined, the post-cure inflator could not be arranged closely to the tire vulcanizing press side, resulting in an increase in space therefor. Further, since the rotating arm was also extended, the rotating moment was increased to make it difficult to hold the stop position precision.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
This invention thus has an object to provide a tire vulcanizer allowing a more compact size of tire vulcanizer and the effective use of the space by providing a discharge position for cooled tire between the press and post-cure inflator of the tire vulcanizer, or designing the structure of swing loader.
A tire vulcanizer according to one preferred embodiment of this invention comprises a tire vulcanizing press for vulcanization molding a green tire, a post-cure inflator for expansion cooling the vulcanization molded tire, which is juxtaposed with the tire vulcanizing press, and a swing loader for turning and carrying the tire vulcanized by the tire vulcanizing press to the post-cure inflator.
In the above tire vulcanizer, the discharge position of the tire cooled by the post-cure inflator is preferably set within the rotating track of the swing loader.
When the discharge position is set within the rotating track, the arrangement mode of a discharge conveyor for receiving the cooled tire can be variously selected so as to compress (reduce) the longitudinal space between the tire vulcanizing press and the post-cure inflator. Further, the swing loader can be used for carrying of both the vulcanized tire and the cooled tire.
The swing loader of the tire vulcanizer according to the preferred embodiment of this invention comprises an expansible and contractible tire chuck capable of supporting the bead part of an unvulcanized or vulcanized tire, a rotatable rotating arm having a top end provided with the tire chuck and a base end supported by the tire vulcanizing press, and a drive part consisting of a first hydraulic cylinder whose rod side is pivotally fixed to the tire vulcanizing press side, a second hydraulic cylinder whose rod side is pivotally fixed to the rotating arm side, and a frame body for supporting the cylinder parts of the first and second hydraulic cylinders one above the other in such a way as to set the expanding direction of each rod in the cylinders to be in the reverse direction each other.
According to this structure, the rotating arm can be shortened to minimize the rotating moment, whereby the stop position precision can be improved, and the whole tire vulcanizing device can be also made compact.
In the swing loader of the tire vulcanizer according to the preferred embodiment of this invention, preferably, the frame body of the drive part and the rotating arm-side second rod fixing part to which the rod end of the second hydraulic cylinder is pivotally fixed are slidably supported by a guide rod one end of which is rotatably supported by the tire vulcanizing press-side first rod fixing part to which the rod end of the first fluid pressure cylinder is pivotally fixed, and stoppers and cushioning members are provided on the guide rod and on the frame body and the second rod fixing part, respectively.
Since the cushioning members touch the stoppers regularly at the same angle (fight angle) even if the rotating arm is rotated, the stop position precision can be further improved with a high shock absorbing effect, and the durability can be also improved.
In the tire vulcanizer according to the preferred embodiment of this invention, preferably, the discharge position for discharging the tire cooled by the post-cure inflator is set within the rotating track of the swing loader, and the swing loader comprises an expansible and contractible tire chuck capable of supporting the bead part of an unvulcanized or vulcanized tire, a rotatable rotating arm having a top end provided with the tire chuck and a base end supported by the tire vulcanizing press, and a drive part consisting of a first hydraulic cylinder whose rod end is pivotally fixed to the tire vulcanizing press side, a second hydraulic cylinder whose rod end is pivotally fixed to the rotating arm side, and a frame body for supporting the cylinder parts of the first and second hydraulic cylinders one above the other in such a way as to set the expanding direction of each rod in the cylinders to be in the reverse direction each other.
According to this structure, the tire vulcanizer can be made much more compact.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5198234 (1993-03-01), Siegenthaler
patent: 5225138 (1993-07-01), Irie
patent: 5352104 (1994-10-01), Ichikawa et al.
patent: 5441393 (1995-08-01), Fujieda et al.
patent: 1-113212 (1989-05-01), None
patent: 6-39851 (1992-12-01), None
patent: 4-371811 (1992-12-01), None
patent: 6-328155 (1994-11-01), None
patent: 9-225944 (1997-09-01), None
Kabushiki Kaisha Kobe Seiko Sho
Mackey James P.
Oblon & Spivak, McClelland, Maier & Neustadt P.C.
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